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Seven stories of coming to America

By AsianWeek Staff

The stories of how immigrants came to the “Land of the Free” are as varied as the people themselves. Whether it is an Indian construction worker seeking a better life or a Laotian teacher fleeing from years of violence and civil unrest to a refugee camp, they have all ended up as a part of a multicultural community. Their stories tell it all: violence, hardship, luck and a surprisingly large amount of joy. In this issue, we celebrate their lives and their struggles to make it in the United States.

Dat Nguyen.

Dat Nguyen

Dat Nguyen didn’t come to this country the way most Vietnamese did in 1969. He left Vietnam as a 19-year-old student, not as a refugee from the Vietnam War. After completing college in Canada, he moved to the Bay Area in the early ’90s. Nguyen now provides social services for Vietnamese immigrants, many of them refugees of war. “In the last 18 years,” explains the executive director of the Vietnamese American Council (VAC), “we have provided education and computer training to many Vietnamese immigrants.”

Nguyen explains that VAC has also helped several thousand immigrants become U.S. citizens. This is in sharp contrast to how Nguyen himself came to this country: “I was born and raised in Saigon [present-day Ho Chi Minh City]. I was very lucky that the government allowed me to go to college abroad.” English wasn’t a problem, the San Jose, Calif., resident explains, since in Vietnam, learning English and French are compulsory.

After training as a mechanical engineer, Nguyen changed his life drastically by leading the VAC. “This is a great job,” says Nguyen. “You get to help people and make money.”

After a brief pause, Nguyen quietly chuckles and adds, “Well, at least a little bit of money.”

Nguyen dismisses much of the racism that he has experienced in the United States: “You can never erase discrimination, as there will always be some form of it. But now, as a whole, Americans are more tolerant.”

Nguyen also feels that it is imperative to maintain one’s culture and tradition: “Each ethnicity in the United States needs to keep its past. That is our contribution as a people. America benefits when we all learn from each other.”

The 51-year-old has done much to assist others. Aside from directing the Council, he has also sponsored his family, helping them to immigrate to this country. But Nguyen believes that it is the United States that allowed him to help others: “This is the best place in the world for individuals. If you work hard, you will ultimately succeed. In other countries, like Vietnam, you cannot get to the top, even if you deserve to.”

Marilen Bugarin.

Marilen Bugarin

Marilen Bugarin does not mince words when it comes to the circumstances surrounding her immigration to the United States. “My parents wanted to be part of the biggest export that the Philippines had to offer,” explains the 22-year-old. “They came as human labor.”

Bugarin came to this country on June 23, 1986, when she was 5. The transition, she explains, was very difficult: “As much as the Philippines strives to assimilate to the culture of the United States, it is still very different. There is virtually no middle class in the Philippines; either you are very rich or very poor.”

Bugarin’s father had spent many years abroad working as a construction worker. Her mother, who had applied for a U.S. visa before she had married, was finally granted permission to immigrate to the United States 10 years after her original application.

“When we moved to San Francisco,” Bugarin recalls, “we had to live in a tenement in the Tenderloin. My dad ended up taking lots of minimum-wage jobs. My mother worked as an accountant, getting paid under the table.”

Growing up in the Tenderloin, known as one of the tougher neighborhoods in San Francisco, wasn’t a problem for Bugarin: “At the time, it was fine to stay there because there were many immigrants in the area. But there was certainly a lot of crime.”

School was an opportunity for her to realize that she was not alone in her struggle to make the cultural transition. “I graduated from Galileo High School, where I met many people facing similar problems. It was a struggle to assimilate to American culture while maintaining a separate identity.”

Bugarin balks at the hypocrisy that surrounds immigrant culture: “The gender line for an immigrant is very pronounced. If you are a male, it is seen as a sign of success if you assimilate to American culture. But if you are a woman and you stop following the traditional Asian expectations of being quiet and submissive, you are seen as belligerent.”

Bugarin doesn’t feel that America has robbed her of identity: “I don’t believe that I lost my culture — I never had one. The Philippines has a very mixed culture due to the fact that colonizers from all over the world came to our country.”

She feels that she has kept the best from her two cultures. Bugarin is currently going to college and working as a receptionist. She is also a devout Catholic and speaks Tagalog fluently. “Just remember,” she advises any immigrant experiencing problems settling into America, “you are not alone. There are many others who have had to make the transition from the Philippines to the United States.”

Inho Choi.

Inho Choi

Three years ago, Inho Choi made the decision to study overseas. Little did he know what his experience in America would entail.

Choi works at a Korean restaurant on Geary Street in San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day. He goes to sleep at 5 a.m., wakes up at 8 a.m. and attends school from 9 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. on weekdays. Then he spends the rest of the afternoon and evening cramming in homework and studying at the library until he must rush off to the restaurant. He averages 32-42 hours of sleep a week, and on weekends he splurges on six to seven hours a night.

“I need to sleep more,” Choi comments, astonished at how little he sleeps, “[but] I have to support myself and pay tuition for school. I have no choice.”

Choi was born and raised in Ko-Chang, South Korea — a small town with some 300 people. His parents work for the Seoul Milk Company.

Life with his older brother and younger sister was simple. “We used to swim in the lake, catch frogs, fish in our rural, middle-class town,” Choi explains. “Our parents sent us to Kang Ho High School, and I finished my education there.”

Although Choi’s English is quite fluent now, he admits that English classes in Korea don’t emphasize speaking but merely focus on writing and grammar. He was drawn to computers and spent many hours teaching himself how to program.

Instead of attending one of the four Korean universities he was accepted into, Choi dove right into the workforce and became certified as a programmer and developer.

“In high school, the computer was [like] my girlfriend and I wasn’t interested in going to college with kids who didn’t study and only drank and smoked,” Choi says.

He worked for four years, two of which were spent training college graduates in his company. One day, he came across the trainees’ salaries and was mortified to discover that they earned significantly more than he.

“I panicked,” Choi says. “There’s no answer. The only thing was that they had a degree.”

Upon confirmation that his company paid more for college degrees, Choi decided to get his bachelor’s degree overseas. He researched colleges in the United States, accessed his financial situation and applied to four schools.

“I felt like I was doing the right thing and promised my mom I would come back in four to five years with [a] degree,” Choi says. “I was a little nervous. My friends and colleagues told me I would have to take ESL courses, and many have come back penniless because of language and cultural barriers.”

After spending a year living on savings, Choi began to notice that his English was improving by making friends with South Asian Americans, whites, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans and a few Korean Americans. He decided to find a job when he realized his savings would not hold out through his schooling.

“I didn’t have the American dream. Look at my shoes. There’s no label. I just wanted to study. I want to experience cultural diversity in my life and career,” Choi says. “Living here [indefinitely] is still up in the air. I want to work in an international trading company if I have the opportunity. If a company [decides to] support me, then I would consider living here.”

Keizo Norimoto.

Keizo Norimoto

Keizo Norimoto, CEO of Hokubei Mainichi newspaper, the second largest Japanese American newspaper in America, has two identities. He is respected in the community as a Buddhist minister, and he is also known to the intellectual community as Nomoto Ippei, author of six books and contributor to eight periodicals.

After immigrating from Iwate-ken, Japan, in 1963, Norimoto has had much to share with those who are interested in his bicultural perspective as an immigrant.

Norimoto was educated in Kyoto, majoring in history with a focus on cultural adaptation of Buddhism in the Eastern and Western cultures.

“I am from a temple family — a family that maintains a temple that is passed from eldest son to eldest son,” Norimoto explains. “I was a high-school teacher for seven years but retired in 1962 and now write about migration patterns.”

In 1962, Norimoto received a minister’s license in Kyoto. In 1963, he became the project and events manager for the 70th anniversary celebration of Buddhism. He was one of several delegates who traveled through major cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and New York to commemorate the landmark event.

“In 1963, I went to the U.S. to stay. I studied the Japanese immigration patterns of pre- and post-World War II. I was fascinated with the new world and wanted to see for myself how Buddhism was being received in the U.S.”

Norimoto worked as a houseboy for a wealthy, white family in San Marino, Calif., to sharpen his English skills for the first six months of his stay.

“I couldn’t believe the wealth in America,” Norimoto states. “The wife goes golfing, doctor goes to work and kids have lots of toys. Hot water on tap was amazing. Every house had an electric refrigerator with a bounty of food and air conditioning.”

Norimoto did housework, garden work and cooked. He describes his experience as a positive one, pointing out that the wealthy in Japan would demean servants because of the hierarchy ingrained in the culture. In contrast, his American family treated him as an equal.

“This is democracy,” he says. “By age 30, people have their philosophies and preconceptions of life, but I had to deconstruct and reconstruct my philosophies.”

Norimoto moved into a temple in Los Angeles’ Japantown after his six-month stay with the family and was soon joined by his wife, Toshiko, a music teacher he had met through mutual friends in 1968. The couple married and had two children, managing a modest living as a temple family while Norimoto voraciously wrote for periodicals and penned books.

Eventually, the Norimoto family moved to Fresno in 1976 to manage a temple, and in 1997 Norimoto was offered a job with Hokubei Mainichi in San Francisco.

“There are few Japanese writers in America. Being here is like a long research project. I’m concerned about the community and preserving culture of both old and new immigrants. I’m hoping America, and in general, continues to better understand diversity and culture.”

Annie Yang.

Annie Yang

Looking back, Annie Yang, 46, is not regretful of her move to the United States. “My family is here and our shop is here,” Yang says with a smile. “We’re pretty happy.”

In China, her husband’s family and hers were neighbors. They arranged a marriage when he received a chance to go to America.

“China was very poor back then, so when I had the opportunity to [go to] America, of course I took it,” she says.

After her husband arrived, he applied to have his new wife brought over. Now, 17 years later, Yang and her husband have raised two sons and own a Kearny Street café on the edge of San Francisco’s Chinatown.

“When I first arrived in America and I saw all the conveniences available here, I was very excited and relieved,” says Yang. “While in China you can only make 30 yen a month, here we could make $50 a day. We thought it was great.”

Yang also has had to take care of her two children and take night school classes to learn English. Although she knew it would be difficult moving to a new country where she did not speak the language, Yang was not deterred: “I had my heart set on coming here. Not knowing the language was not about to stop me.”

Even though Yang enjoys her life in America, she sometimes gets homesick and still carries with her the traditions of her homeland. She believes that one of America’s problems is its large massing of radical and ethnic diversities, which can make living together difficult. She has had her share of racism. Yang recalls her children being picked on at school when they were young for being Chinese. She wants to teach her two sons about their heritage so they can be proud of who they are. She is planning a trip back to China at the end of this year so that they can see the origins of their culture.

Abhijit Bhattacharya.

Abhijit Bhattacharya

It isn’t every day that $1,100 is found on an airport runway. It was Abhijit Bhattacharya’s first flight abroad, and he only had $7 in his pocket and not much more than that to his name.

“[After I found the money] I told the air hostess to make some announcements to the passengers. But, after three announcements, she got annoyed and told me to keep it,” he said.

Bhattacharya was born in the small town of Bhankura, India. After finishing his undergraduate studies in India, Bhattacharya left for Canada in 1976. His plan was to complete his master’s in structural engineering and then return to India.

“I had no intention to stay for longer than a year or two,” explains Bhattacharya. “But my wife, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, was pregnant. I realized that it was my duty to take care of her.”

Coming to the United States was no easy matter. At the time, the Indian government allowed only $7 to be taken out of the country. Because of this law, Canadian immigration authorities refused to let him into Canada.

“They asked me how I was planning to live with only $7,” chuckles Bhattacharya. “But when I showed them the $1,100, they let me through without saying another word.”

Bhattacharya made his way to Los Angeles, where things were tough.

“I worked 18 hour days at a local grocery store. I was paid $1 an hour, far below minimum wage,” he remembers.

After a tiff with the owner of the store, Bhattacharya decided to move to Orange County where he worked in construction until starting his own company in 1979.

“We went from remodeling houses to building franchise hotels,” Bhattacharya says proudly. “We had a seven-bedroom house and a Mercedes in the garage. I even owned three restaurants.”

Bhattacharya has no illusions when it comes to racism in the United States: “It was always there. When you try to advance to a higher level, people get jealous. As an Indian, it is very difficult to get to the top and much easier to stay in middle management. But racism was never an obstacle for me.”

Speaking about his life story as an immigrant, Bhattacharya adds, “There is something to learn from this: Never give up hope. I’ve been at the bottom and I’ve been at the top, but I’ve always fought to better myself. I hope that people can learn from my troubles.”

Chanta Luangrath.

Chanta Luangrath

“I love teaching,” Chanta Luangrath proclaims. Before immigrating to the United States in 1981, the 58-year-old chairman of the Lao Parent-Teachers Association in San Pablo, Calif., taught radio broadcasting in his native Laos, where he lived with his wife and four children, ages 2 to 8.

Then in the mid-1970s, when the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party took control of his country after years of persistent war in the Indochina region, Luangrath fled along with some 300,000 of his countrymen. “Everything changed,” he says. “I left everything behind.”

Luangrath and his family took a boat across the river to escape their country, then lived in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines before immigrating to the United States.

Though his father died in Laos in 1985, the rest of Luangrath’s Laotian family has since relocated to this country. For them, coming to America “was like a family reunion,” Luangrath says.

“I came here for a new life and for my kids’ education,” Luangrath says. He continues his passion for teaching as a special education assistant at a local middle school.

His family — now including three grandchildren — decided long ago to make their move to America permanent. Luangrath says, “We want to be part of building a peaceful nation.”